Sportive Thoughts

Architectural Photography is, as the name clearly suggests, the photography of architectural works. But I want to describe a clear ontology of the architectural photograph -- namely, how a photograph of an architectural work becomes an artwork of its own. That is to say, rather than be of a work of art, I want to focus on the architectural photograph as a work of art. This means: we're not interested in "simple photographs" of tourists or postcards that merely serve to show a work of architecture, and we want to distinguish "simple photography" from "architectural photography" such that the latter stands on its own as a piece of art, with the photographer as an artist.

The below is not a manual on how to do architectural photography, just a manual on how to formulate a manner of judgment.

1. Photographs of this kind require knowledge and skill in order to be considered art.

The knowledge/skills required for architectural photography are of two classes, the same two classes of knowledge/skill required by any photographer. General photographic knowledge/skill involves the nature of photography. Essentially, you need to know that the camera imprints on film a field of light, on which the lens is focused. The imprint, and the viewing medium, is 2 dimensional (3 dimensional imprints and viewing formats are possible, but are considered holography and not photography). Objects under more intense light become more illuminated in the photograph, since there is more "data" (photons or light) to register (graph or record). Knowledge of the subject helps the artist identify what she wants to record, and then record it. When it comes to architecture, the photographer should know how the subject divides and orders space, alters or conforms to the surrounding context, and performs in relation to human needs. For instance, a cathedral of the Spanish Gothic style divides space into the Earthly and Heavenly realms, while ritualistically directing the visitors attention from one (Earth) to the other (Heaven). The nature of the ritual, in this case 15th and 16th century Roman Catholicism, determines the details of spatial division. All architecture follows some pattern of context-ritual-space, and the nature of the ritual for which a building is build always determines the ordering of space.

A simple photograph, as in the first example above, shows how space is ordered by making its 3 dimensional nature explicit within a 2 dimensional medium. It may even be a diagram like the second image. But then, a simple photograph is only serving the purpose of a window; through it we see the architectural space without inhabiting it. Such simplicity does not require either photographic or architectural knowledge: one need only capture a view of the space as is without necessarily knowing anyting about either medium. Hence, there is little intention in a simple photograph other than to see, and if you think art has something (though not everything) to do with intention, then there is little artistic merit to such pictures that does not already belong to the subject.

2. Architectural photographs achieve a specific aim and/or function that simple photographs do not.

If simple photographs serve as windows to the architecture, then clearly architectural photos must either do more than that or do something else entirely. There's one main problem in arguing architectural photos do more than provide a window to the space: the pictures certainly don't put you in the space! I cannot think of any way of becoming more involved with a window than climbing through it, and thereby inhabiting the space on the other side. A picture doesn't let you physically into the illustrated space. Thus, I don't think it opportune to say a good architectural photograph does more than show the space; because that would require it to actually put you there.

So it must be that the aim/function of this kind of photography is to do something other than show. Of course, by definition, it shows something in the process. But the goal, by which we call the process an art, is not dependent upon the ability to show something. Instead, the architectural photograph must do something with its medium. This, I think, stipulates that it must combine the elements of photography and of architecture to generate a third entity, namely, the architectural photograph. The question is: how can such a generation come about?

Let's use the example of "text". We innately have, as humans, an ability to communicate with one another. We have an innate ability to recognize visual patterns. Over an unknown amount of time, these two separate abilities were conjoined in the practice of writing. We know writing is not an innate ability of humans because it must be actively taught or aquired, whereas communicating and recognition of patterns can be passively learned during natural development. And so, the actively learned practice of writing generates something -- we call them "texts" -- that draw on both innate abilities to communicate and to recognize. (Obviously, there's lots of controversy surrounding this, but I figure that concise account is more or less standard.)

The written text is the product of a practice which combines two innate abilities. I think the text stands in the same relation to communication and recognition as architectural photography does to architecture and photography. By making use of two sets of technologies -- one, architecture, that orders our spatial relation to the world and others; and the other, photography, that enables us to see and recognize visual images -- we can produce a practice one step removed from its component elements. Hence, architectural photography neither orders (as does architecture) nor shows (as do pictures), but does something else entirely. What it does can, again, be compared to what texts "do."

3. Architectural photographs recite meanings otherwise unutterable.

(My argument here will go down a somewhat "Derridean" path; but I hope not to alienate more "analytic" thinkers. I only ask at this point that you accept the metaphysical assumption that we've generated a "third entity" that is ontologically distinct from its antecedent parts. I accept that, in contemporary epistemology following Hume, there can be no account for this type of causation. But I believe that's besides the point since what we are interested in is an aesthetic phenomenon, which, starting with Kant's 3rd Critique, is arguably allowed for w/o harming more analytic considerations.)

What texts "do" is to provide a record that can be interpreted; from interpretation we learn something of what the text is talking about, what the author thought of the subject, and how similar subjects can be recorded to mean different things. By analogy, architectural photographs do the same. They can be interpreted to reveal meaning additional to the meaning present in the subject. Often in practice this is done by including additional subjects within the architectural space. A good example of this is in the painting, "Interior of the Old Church" by Emmanuel de Witte. That paining, whose subject is the same as its title, does more than show us the church, its space and its decorations. It also comments on how that space is used; the most striking way of making this comment is the inclusion of a Dutchman standing in his finest attire, looking at the congregation.

This figure, by being consciously included within the depiction of the architectural subject, allows the artist to "comment" on a whole range of topics. But to understand this comment, we must interpret. (For comparison, see another version here.)

(As some brilliant artists, such as Eve Sussman, have shown, photography can visually perform the same functions of a paiting. And as the great painters have shown, painting can visually perform the same functions of a text.) Compare the above painting to a shot in Orson Welles' The Trial.

The exact same style of architecture is depicted (16th century Gothic Cathedral), but the photograph is able to convey completely different meanings.

Summary: An architectural photograph conveys authorial meanings in addition to the record of organized space.

This assumes (as in 1) that the photographer has some intention in making a photograph, enabled by knowledge and skill. It also assumes that, once this intention is taken into account, (2) the act of making an architectural photograph achieves an aim not achieved in simple photography. This aim, by design (in which the artist clearly wanted us to interpret the work in a given manner) or by "genius" (in the Kantian sense, where interpretability is sought, but not a given set of interpretations), (3) is achieved when the resultant photograph has a meaning that could not otherwise have been conveyed by simply seeing the subject. Thus, while the first image up top may be quite beautiful, all the meaning is in the subject, whereas the last two examples above show a subject enhanced by artistic intervention. Those are what I would very broadly consider architectural photographs, and they are in my opinion, free-standing works of art.